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Monthly Archives: February 2009

I’ve never been short on metrics when it comes to knowing I’m a computer nerd. The latest example was this evening. I was walking through the garage, on the way to take a bag of kitchen trash to the outdoor trash cans. Without thinking about it much, I noticed the softener salt bags in the garage. The offhand comment that went through my head was “I really need to get those installed”. Doh!

QuakeLive will be going into open beta in four days. It’s basically a web interface wrapped around Quake 3: Arena. It does matching, ladders, tournaments, etc. It also lets you play q3a free via your web browser. I’ve not gotten a chance to play it yet, but I’m a huge fan of q3a, so I can’t wait to try it out!

The creation/evolution debate is as hot as ever these days. All too often during the course of these discussions/rants, I see things that are not comparable being compared. The most annoying is when debates are framed in terms of Creationism versus science. Science being process of progressing from observation to understanding via concrete, reproducible steps (observe->theorize->experiment->revise->repeat). Creationism is an explanation of the beginnings of the universe in which we live. Science is not at odds with Creationism. It’s an apples and oranges comparison. One is an explanation, the other is a process.

I just read an interesting article on the Amish and technology. It talks about how the Amish evaluate new technologies (cell phones, cars, etc) and determine if they help make their community stronger. Technologies that detriment the community are rejected in favor of other methods that help improve the cohesive nature of their families and communities. Another advantage of this method of adopting technologies after evaluation by a few community members is that it’s a tremendous cost savings for them to be 10-50 years behind the cutting edge.

Anyway, it makes me long for a society like this. Almost enough to be willing to give up my modern toys and conveniences (or distractions and frustrations, if you want to look at them in that light) in order to spend days working and being with my family and friends.